Doing Notecards for Research

**WARNING: There is no way for me to tell whether or not the quotations or notes you are doing on the notecards are useful for your topic. Don’t assume that a 100% on your notecards means that you are all set. There are too many of you, I can’t check them all in detail every time, I can only make sure that you are at least getting something done, meeting minimum requirements, and following directions. You need to be careful now, and be aware of the amount of information you are getting. If you aren’t truly reading your source as you do your notecards you will be doing a lot of backtracking when it is time to write the paper. It is important that you not be sloppy with page numbers and publication information. It will cost you a lot of time to have to go back and look up all that information again later. Remember a citation must include an accurate page number (if the nature of an electronic source makes page numbers impossible then you do paragraph numbers). A works cited entry needs all of the information and it will make your life a lot easier if you just do your bibliography card correctly to begin with.

DIRECTIONS

Minimum 25 notecards with an additional bibliography card on top with complete works cited information done in correct format and with your name on it.
If you are reading a source too short to get 25 cards (such as a letter or excerpt) then you will need to take notes on more than one source. This means you will turn in a couple smaller sets with a bibliography card for each so that the total notecards containing notes totals at least 25.
Notecards are to be on 3 x 5 index cards or 4 x 6 index cards. Make sure you are consistent, do not mix the two sizes of notecards, they then become impossible to rubberband and some will slide out and you will lose them.
Notecards are to be bound tightly in a rubberband with the bibliography card on top or in a small manila envelope with your name on it. If you show up in class without your cards already prepared like this and ready to turn in you will lose points. Do not expect me or the upper school office to have rubberbands for you.
They then must be attached to a copy of the source itself by a large paper clip or if it's a book then the book must be left in my classroom while I grade the cards for that week.
Each set of notecards must be coded (as you were taught in 9th grade English) so that you can tell which source each card goes to. This means using letter codes on each card. Your first set would have an A in the top Right corner of every card, the second source set a B, and so on.
each notecard must have page number(s) on the top, if it’s an internet source and it does not have page numbers then you do paragraph number.
direct quotation must be in quotation marks
the quote should be first on the card after the page number
on the back of the card write a few sentences about what the information/quotation means or how you think it will help you in the paper

This part is particularly important since you may not remember why you wrote down a specific quotation or piece of info when you sit down to write the paper many weeks after taking those notes

Example:

Front of a notecard

p. 12

“It grew also from the Victorian norm that hard work was unfeminine, a norm that made child care and housework invisible as forms of labor; they appeared rather as emanations of love and of a female nestmaking that was instinctual, not learned or laborious.”

it=the notion that women did not work

Back of notecard

saying that there was this idea that women didn’t work

part of it was because house work and child care weren’t considered real work since it was done by women and women couldn’t or shouldn’t do hard work so then it must not be real work, work that had to be learned or difficult

it was just something women naturally did because they were women

could be used in section on types of work women did, or on what people thought about what women did, or on what women were supposed to do, or even in a section on women in the home

-The front of the notecard is coded so that when it becomes separated from the stack you will know that it goes with the bibliography card also labeled A.

-The page number is clearly labeled

-it’s a direct quotation so it’s in quotation marks

-the “it” in the quotation is defined so that the researcher will know later what it meant. This is important when parts of a quotation are not obvious, particularly when pronouns are used

-the quotation is not abbreviated. this is also important. abbreviated quotations are not acceptable since I can’t tell what good the note would do you and it wouldn’t mean anything to you a month later when you’re writing

-the back of the card both makes it clear what quotation means and states how it might be used in the paper